Twiga Foods appoints Jumia’s Charles Ballard as CEO after Peter Njonjo exit

Kenyan e-commerce and food distribution company Twiga Foods has named Charles Ballard as its new CEO following Peter Njonjo’s exit in December 2023.

Ballard has been the CEO of the Kenyan arm of e-commerce company Jumia since April last year.

He joined Jumia Kenya in 2019 as Head of Offline Sales before becoming COO, then Senior Vice President of the group’s commercial wing, and then CEO.

“We are delighted to welcome Charles as our new Chief Executive. His deep understanding of the Kenyan e-commerce and retail landscape, his proven operational grip, his entrepreneurial drive, and his passion for the Twiga Foods opportunity make him the ideal leader to steer Twiga into its next phase of growth and success,” Hein Pretorius, Chairman of Twiga’s board of directors, said.

Ballard’s career across e-commerce, retail, and financial services spans over 15 years, Twiga said, nine of which are in the Kenyan market.

He will oversee all aspects of Twiga's business supported by Twiga’s other senior leaders to bolster Kenya’s largest agri-tech company’s ambition to transform food supply chains in Africa.

Njonjo founded the business-to-business (B2B) marketplace in 2013 with Grant Brooke. He resigned from the company’s helm and then left its board in January, leaving it under the control of foreign shareholders.

His exit was on the heels of an announcement that he was taking a six-month sabbatical after “an intense 2023” to focus on personal matters.

It came in the backdrop of Twiga’s $261,878 (Ksh.35 million at current exchange rates) debt collection lawsuit from cloud services vendor Incentro Africa that was later settled after a reported $35 million (Ksh.4.7 billion) round.